Austin warms up to bats as they warm up city's tourism economy

JOHN MORITZ

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, April 7, 2008

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Merlin Tuttle wants not only to protect the habitats of bats but also to improve their image.

Tuttle is the founder and executive director of Bat Conservation International. He moved the group from Wisconsin to Austin in the mid-1980s after more than a million of the tiny flying mammals called Mexican free-tails made the newly renovated bridge over the Colorado River south of downtown their summer home.

The critters began to darken the horizon around sundown from mid-March until early autumn, and many Austin residents began to fear that rabies and other life-threatening diseases would run rampant.

"There were a lot of well-meaning but highly misinformed people who were expecting swarms of rabid bats attacking at random and endangering public health," said Tuttle, who has written four books about bats' behavior and their effect on the environment. "Here we are, 25 years later, and we're still waiting for the first person in Austin to be attacked by a bat."

Whatever trepidations Austin may have had about the bats have long vanished. The colony of Mexican free-tails that roost in the crevices of what is now called the Ann Richards Bridge has grown into the world's largest collection of bats in an urban setting.

And their noisy jaunts in search of just about any flying insect attract thousands of visitors to the parks and overpasses around Austin's Town Lake each evening.

Having the bats as a tourism feature generates about $10 million a year for the city, officials say.

Tuttle and Barbara French, the science director of Bat Conservation International, said the colony is good for tourism and for the environment. The estimated 1.5 million bats gobble up about 30,000 pounds of mosquitoes, gnats and moths each night. Their droppings harm the Colorado River less than the waste of the countless dogs that do their business on miles of jogging and hiking trails along the riverbank, Tuttle and French said.

French said the bats' diet not only makes outdoor recreation more pleasant but also reduces agricultural pests.

"That means we don't have to use as many pesticides to keep the food supply safe," she said.

The concern that bats can spread disease should not be dismissed out of hand, Tuttle said.

But using a little common sense should minimize much of the risk.

"If you see a bat on the ground, it's probably there because it's dead or sick," Tuttle said. "So don't touch it. Report it to the authorities. If you do touch, make sure the bat is checked out and you are checked out."

He said that rabies from bats accounts for only about one death a year in the United States.